Crumbling Ice
by Rinusagitora
Summary: Oneshot. HitsuKarin-centric, minor familial HitsuHina, mentioned badship AiHina. Canon divergent. Gift fic for fusje on tumblr. /Her warmth melts him./


He had carefully crafted a professional persona over his service as a shinigami. He was small, youthful, difficult to respect as an authority. He had to portray the image of a leader to maintain order; exercise his authority swiftly and fairly, be objective and analytical, constantly improve upon his current abilities. There was no room for self-doubt, there was no room for exceptions, there was no room for a personal life.

His heart was summarily frozen over in a layer of frost. He was an iceberg.

But icebergs were only impenetrable outside of warm waters. They crumbled the farther they strayed from the arctic.

He wasn't sure when the first crack appeared in his frosty armor, he thought as he approached the Kurosaki residence. The door flung open as he lift his hand to knock, and Karin stood on the other side with a wide silver eyes and a broad grin. "I didn't expect you here so soon, Toushirou." She remarked.

He let nobody call him by his given name. He was a captain, informality was a relaxation of hierarchy, which would lead to the collapse of his command, which would make him weak and incapable. But he'd given up trying to correct her.

Karin grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside. He discarded his loafers in the genkan before he followed her into her family room, and then they sat themselves on the couch. She curled her legs to her chest, flipped on the television, and then turned to him.

"You're looking good." She said.

"This gigai doesn't show the perpetually dark circles under its eyes, so I look better than I actually feel." He replied.

She laughed then. "And here I thought you couldn't joke around!" She teased.

"I was being serious…." He murmured. He wasn't sure where she found humor in him.

Still, she laughed, and then silence fell between them. He would call it awkward, but he was impervious to awkward silences so there was no difference to him. Better awkward silences than her babbling away. It would've been annoying.

"I have a game next week." Karin announced. "Can you come?"

"No. I'm a captain, I have obligations, you know that. You should've asked Urahara to pass on a message that I should've visited next week instead of this." He replied. "Can't one of your friends attend? I understand you're close with the Shouten kids, maybe they can go."

"No…" she sighed as she stuck out her lip. "Ururu and Jinta will be out of town with Yuzu for her cooking competition, and the rest of my friends are on my team, which means they'll be playing too. I'll have nobody to root me on…. Won't you? Please?"

He grit his teeth, and then sighed. He might not know when the first chink in his frosty armor appeared, but he knew when the second had erupted.

"I'll take the afternoon off. I won't be able to stay the night, however." He said. Karin's eyes sparkled as she grinned.

Never had he made exceptions for anybody, especially a human girl, and especially not for something as frivolous as a soccer game. He hated how soft she made him.

* * *

Feelings were complicated. He didn't have any room for feelings, let alone the time, but Karin made him make room for a lot of things for her. Like her soccer games, like a trip to the beach.

He dropped his bag and stuck the outdoor umbrella in the sand. He'd like to get into the shade and raid the cooler the Shouten kids brought to alleviate the heat that seemed to bake him. July was the worst time to visit, very unstrategic of him he'd confess, but Karin was still very persuasive and he did need a day off.

It wasn't to say that he had feelings for her, it was merely a comparison. Or something.

"I know I said this a bajillion times on the way here, but I really am grateful you could come." Karin said as she dropped her bag on his towel.

He retrieved a Sprite from the cooler. "I wouldn't have come if I didn't want to." He replied as he popped the flap.

She laughed as she retied her hair. "Well, still, it's really great that you could make this trip. I know you're busy, and it's sweet of you to make time."

He'd tell her that it wasn't for her, it was just with her, but both sounded pretty bad. For her meant he was at her mercy, a slave to her whims, and with her made her an exception to his fair and objective authority.

"We don't have the sea in the Soul Society." He told her instead. "I wanted to see it."

"Why? All you'd have to do is look in a mirror and you'd see a much prettier sight." She grinned slyly at him.

Color flushed his cheeks as he hid behind his Sprite can. "Isn't this supposed to be the other way around?"

"Only according to Yuzu's shoujo manga." Karin laughed as she stripped off her top. Ever distasteful of established gender roles, he thought fondly.

"R-right," he sunk behind his soda as he watched her practiced muscles shift under her fair skin. There was power under her hide, but grace as well. He dare call her beautiful-in an aesthetic sense, that was. Not because of any sort of attraction he felt for her.

Karin dropped her shorts and dumped her clothes into her dufflebag. She wore a simple one piece under her clothes, a black and white striped article that reminded him of a jailbird uniform. But it was slimmer, fitted to her curves where it didn't cover her dips. It modestly covered her ample bosom but her back was open, as were her soccer-practiced legs.

"I know you hate being out in the sun, Toushirou, but I brought a tube just for you if you want to chill in the water with me…. It's in my bag." She said.

 _With me,_ not us. As if she wanted his attention, his company to herself. He never had felt wanted with the kids in the Rukongai. It made him feel stupidly fuzzy inside.

God, she was unravelling him.

"I'll consider it." He replied. Karin merely smiled at him before she joined her other two friends in the sea.

She was so odd. Odder was how she made him feel.

* * *

His office door slid open. He blinked as the lady Kuchiki stepped inside, pager in hand with a rather… sympathetic look, he'd call it. Emotions weren't really his department so he couldn't say for certain.

"It's for you. It's Yuzu." Kuchiki explained as she stepped in front of him. "We should really get those girls a pager of their own. She had to use Inoue's…."

He didn't like what that could mean- an emergency. Still, he kept his cool, took Kuchiki's pager, and held it to his ear. "Hitsugaya-taichou speaking."

" _Hitsugaya-kun, it's Yuzu._ " She started. " _I'll just cut to the chase. Karin and Ichigo got into a screaming match earlier and Karin's locked herself in our room. I know you're busy, but I wouldn't have called if I hadn't tried everything else. Could you just talk to her? Please?_ "

He leaned back in his chair as he frowned. He hated to meddle in family affairs, but he supposed Karin was a friend. He already made numerous exceptions for her. He already felt something for her. "What was it about?"

" _The usual with those two. You know how Karin is about her powers._ "

"That I do." He sighed as he recalled her complaints in the past; how she couldn't help the spirits that haunt her, how regularly her life was put in jeopardy without powers. "I need to run a quick errand, but I'll be there as soon as possible."

" _Thank you, Hitsugaya-kun. You're a good friend. Karin needs that._ "

He clapped Kuchiki's pager shut and passed it to her.

"I hope you're on your way to the twelfth to fetch a soul pager for those girls, Hitsugaya-taichou." Kuchiki said as she tucked her pager in her top. "They deserve to have some connection to this world. I can only imagine how isolated they must feel."

He stood and skirted past her. "Of course you can only imagine." He said. He got Kuchiki's message. 'They', 'those girls'- she meant Karin. The number of people to make an exception for Kurosaki's sister was strange. He wondered if it was her relation to her brother or her special sort of charisma- the sort of charisma that could endear her to even the coldest individual. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to perform some damage control."

He submit an application for a soul pager to one of his officers before he made his way for the Senkaimon. He was granted access, as he always was, and he made his way in-gigai- thankfully with little conversation with Urahara or his children, for he may never explain his visit to someone as inane as the shopkeeper or escape scrutiny under Karin's friends- to the Kurosaki residence.

Yuzu opened the door after he rang. "She's upstairs." She told him. She looked… displeased, he thought as he brushed past her. He didn't blame her. The poor thing was caught in something that was totally foreign to her unseeing eyes. It must be as rough on her as Karin's unfulfilled potential. "Thanks again."

"No problem." He replied as he brushed past her. He made his way upstairs and knocked on Karin's door.

"It's me." He said, though, she probably already knew that because she'd become so good at sensing reiryoku since the feisty yet powerless eleven year old he ran into just years ago.

She opened the door and pulled him inside before he could utter another word. She squeezed him in a desperate hug, and were his ribs not so sturdy they probably would've cracked under her strength. "I _hate_ him." She sobbed. Her tears made his sparse emotions sway sympathetically. He wasn't good with waterworks, and he doubt he'd be any better with her. The only real difference was that Karin wasn't a nuisance. "I hate him, Toushirou! He's so stupid and selfish and I hate him!"

"Slow down, start from the beginning." He sighed as he herded them over to her bed. The mattress depressed under their weight.

She held his hand in her lap and pulled away, her cheeks puffy and pink from crying. It almost broke his heart. "I asked him about the thing again. He literally told me I shouldn't know. I see dead people too, Toushirou. I deserve to know."

"Of course you do." He said. "Kurosaki is just trying to protect you the best way he knows how."

"And how is that!?" She wailed.

"Being a shinigami is immensely dangerous. It's become safer, now that Aizen isn't meddling with hollow experiments. But it's still not a safe career. He doesn't want you anywhere near that. It's understandable, even if it's demeaning."

"I don't care." She barked. "This is my problem before it's his. I'm against hollows with a _soccer ball_ as a fucking weapon! If anything, he's putting me in further jeopardy by not at least… _telling_ me."

"I agree."

"Then why won't you help me?" She sobbed desperately. "Toushirou, _please._ I want to be a shinigami. Soon. Like, this month soon. I'm tired of waiting. I'm going to die someday anyways, and at the rate of which shit's going… I'll just be devoured by a hollow."

Her announcement didn't really come as a surprise to him. She had the potential, the connections, the emotional need for control in her life. Rather, it was the speed in which she wanted to, summarily, end her life.

"Karin… you understand what that means, right? You'll effectively be leaving your family. Any chance of furthering your education- of becoming a well-rounded individual." He said. "We aren't scholars in the Seireitei. We're warriors. We see a lot of things you could compartmentalize better at a later age."

Karin snort. "I don't _care._ I'm fifteen, Toushirou. I haven't exactly been great at living in that time. I'm ready."

"Karin, please think of your sister." He said. "She can't go to the Seireitei, and it's captains and lieutenants who can take leave in the World of the Living. I know your brother has never been persuasive, but think of your twin. I know it's hard, but please… be patient."

"I've waited fifteen years, Toushirou. I've been _hunted_ since I was eleven, the only time I'm happy is when I'm hunting those monsters, I'm going to die some day anyways. Toushirou, you're my friend, please have some sympathy…."

How his heart thumped against the back of his ribs. Call it male ego- he may not be able to rescue Karin, for she was far from a distressed damsel, but Karin still needed him. She confided in him because she had no one else to confide in. It was his job to find compromise. He had the resources to.

"I can… I can train you in some basics." He said. "Kendo, hakuda, maybe a little bit of kidou to finesse your abilities."

Karin's silver eyes glimmer, just momentarily. "I thought you wouldn't."

"Kurosaki was fifteen when he was professionally trained. I may not be able to make you into a shinigami, but I can teach you a thing or two." He said. "How does that sound?"

She wrapped him in another hug. It wasn't one of her delighted, tight hugs, juvenile and infectious, it was grateful, a relief. As if he relieved some of the nightmare she was stuck in.

He swallowed as a new epiphany occurred to him. He was in love with Karin. There wasn't any other explanation for his uncharacteristic behavior around her. It frightened him.

* * *

Since his realization, he suffered bouts of absent-mindedness and whimsy moods and cravings for her attention, often cured by hundreds of messages between himself and Karin. Suffer may be a severe word, but it wasn't exactly his choice to fall for the virtual goddess that was Karin.

Of course Hinamori and Matsumoto would catch onto his mood changes. He knew to expect an interrogation at some point. It frightened him as much as his new vulnerability.

Hinamori wait for him in his barracks one night after he'd stayed late in the office with a bowl of thick, grainy porridge cradled against her chest, and dressed in a pink yukata she slept in. It was late, so her state of dress wasn't unexpected. But it was unexpected that she hadn't cornered him some other time, like during the daytime when she wasn't exhausted by life in general. He'd feel bad to stay out so late, but love did strange things to people.

"You should be in bed." He told her.

"Some goes for you." Hinamori replied. "I wanted to talk, though."

"About?"

"Your ladyfriend."

He frowned as he sat beside his sister. He saw no use in lying to her. "We're not together."

"Yet." Hinamori corrected him. "'Shirou-chan, I know that she's important to you, no matter who she is. I wish you'd tell me who she is, but you're stupidly obstinate so I expected this." She sighed. "Look, all I want is for you to be happy. But I do want to share your joy. Won't you tell me about her?"

He sighed as he folded his arms. "She's wonderful and I hate that I'm in love with her."

"Why?"

"It makes me feel vulnerable. I'm supposed to be a pillar of strength, and being in love makes me feel groundless out of control. She has put cracks in my emotional armor and that frightens me because it was totally without my cognizance until just recently and especially not by choice."

Hinamori smiled and pet his cheek. "Somethings are out of our control. What we do with those is our choice, however." She told him. "I hope you'll pursue your happiness. You know I'll be there for you if it doesn't work out."

He couldn't form a response to that. Instead, he turned his nose into his sister's palm and sighed. He was grateful that it had been Hinamori to talk to him about it. Matsumoto would've never let him live it down.

More importantly, he had some things to think about. If Hinamori could recover from the nightmare Aizen had put her through, a relationship with Karin ought to be must simpler for him- even if the idea of losing his best and only friend to his foolishness terrified him.

* * *

 _We need to talk. In private._

Her text made his heart pound against the back of his ribs. The possibilities of why she needed to talk made his head spin. Was she upset with him? Did she get into another fight with her brother? Was she dead? Was she in love with him? It made him feel dizzy. Yet he couldn't ring himself to reply to her message, despite his worry. Did he message her, there was a strong possibility his worry would be assuaged. But it felt like a threshold that did he pass, his feelings exposed by chinks in his frosty armor, would bleed him dry did it turn out unfavorably.

Still, he couldn't ignore her beckon for long.

"Matsumoto, there are a few matters I have to attend to elsewhere. I expect at least half of this done by the time I return."

Matsumoto sat up and grinned slyly at him. "On it, Taichou. Enjoy yourself."

He'd throw his pen at her, was he less mature, but he had other matters to attend to.

It was a routine he was familiar with; he checked through the Senkaimon, donned his gigai at Urahara's, navigated to the Kurosaki residence and rang. Karin opened the door, her expression unreadable. She always did have a fantastic poker face when she wanted to. He hated it.

He was silent as Karin slipped her hand into his and pulled him into her room. The door shutting felt a lot like a guilty sentence, it made him sick. He sat on her mattress because he suddenly felt so dizzy. How lame would it be if he collapsed before her?

"I'm in love with you." She blurt. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

"What?"

"I'm in love with you." Karin repeated. She strode over to him and then sat. "I'm not good at speeches, but I've been in love with since… since you first rescued me, I think. And I've only grown to love you more since then." She swallowed. "I… I'll understand if we can't be together, o-or if you don't even like me, but… I just couldn't keep it from you anymore."

He should've seen it. For someone who prided himself in his deductive ability, he should've noticed it sooner. She'd long taken a sledgehammer to that carefully crafted barrier of his, it'd long cracked like a spider web, and he- a mulish son of a bitch- just took forever to crumble. "Karin-"

"Let me finish." She continued. "Toushirou, I'm eighteen now. I have control over my own body and… I don't foresee staying here. I'm not happy as a living person. I'm going to die, and I'm going to become a shinigami whether you like it or not. I just… want to get some things in order here."

He nodded. He knew Karin to be headstrong, he saw no point in wasting his breath trying to argue with her.

"Okay. Um..." He was reeling, was he honest. It was hard to collect his thoughts after two bombshells- well, he supposed that Karin _was_ a bombshell altogether- and he pursed his lips. "I'm not good at speeches either, but I… I'm in love with you too. I know I can't talk you out of this, but I want to be with you. I want to support you through this. I want to support you… support you through the rest of your life, if you'll let me."

Karin's arms enveloped him as she smiled. He fell into her as if his backbone could no longer support him, as if it turned into jelly. How long he'd waited to be embraced by her coltish arms, gentle despite their strength, he thought as she kissed him. It felt like she breathed fire and ash into his lungs.

A little girl, he thought, had melted the tundra into a soggy and fertile landscape. She'd turned the frost over his heart into ephemeral steam.


End file.
